Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned on Tuesday following a months-long controversy surrounding her comments towards antisemitism on campus and allegations of plagiarism in her academic work. With the resignation, however, some are questioning the motivations behind the push to oust the University’s top official.
Gay, who took over the position atop one of the world’s most prestigious universities on July 1, has faced mounting criticism since a Dec. 5 congressional hearing on antisemitism and accusations of plagiarism in her academic work. Gay’s resignation brings an end to the shortest tenure of Harvard presidencies and the first tenure of a Black president in the University’s long history.
“It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president,” Gay wrote in a letter on Tuesday. “It has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”
In a separate letter on Tuesday, the Harvard Corporation, the University’s governing body responsible for the selection of the president, echoed the same message.
“In the face of escalating controversy and conflict, President Gay and the Fellows have sought to be guided by the best interests of the institution whose future progress and well-being we are together committed to uphold,” the corporation wrote.
In mid-December, following the controversial antisemitism hearing in Washington that led to the resignation of the University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, and subsequent initial allegations of academic misconduct by Gay, the corporation issued their support for the president after an investigation.
“In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay,” the corporation wrote in a statement on Dec. 12, stating that “the analysis found no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct.”
However, allegations of academic misconduct continued, pushed by a number of conservative activists who sought to use the plagiarism story to “topple” Gay. Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist, called her resignation “the beginning of the end of DEI” in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Gay continued to receive a litany of calls for her resignation in response to her statements during the Dec. 5 hearing, namely when she replied that “calling for the genocide of Jews” might fall under Harvard’s rules of bullying and harrassment “depending on the context,” a statement she later apologized for.
While standing behind her throughout the controversy, the Harvard Corporation noted “missteps” that Gay had taken throughout her tenure, but condemned what it called “racist vitriol directed at her through disgraceful emails and phone calls” made throughout the past few controversial months.
“It has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor,” Gay wrote in her letter. “[A]nd frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus.”
In a guest essay published by the New York Times, Gay wrote she has received death threats and been called the N-word numerous times in recent weeks. On Tuesday afternoon, Ibram X. Kendi, director of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, posted on X, in discontent to the resignation of Gay, citing racial motivations for the calls for her resignation.
“The question to assess whether this was a racist attack isn’t whether Dr. Gay engaged in any misconduct,” Kendi wrote.“The question is whether all these people would have investigated, surveilled, harassed, written about, and attacked her in the same way if the Harvard president in this case would have been White. I. Think. Not.”
Kendi was unavailable for an interview when asked for a comment.
Some, however, expressed different positions on the resignation. Alex Bernat, a junior at Harvard, said that he is “glad to see” that the University will be moving forward with new leadership, adding that “Harvard now has the chance to begin to fix the myriad of issues that have come to light recently.”
Bernat also cast doubt on the Harvard Corporation’s selection of Gay last summer, questioning what he called “the manner in which someone with so many academic integrity issues was chosen for the Harvard presidency.”
On Wednesday, Kelisha Williams, a junior at Harvard, wrote an opinion article in the Harvard Crimson, the University’s student newspaper, thanking Gay for her time at Harvard as a leader and role model.
“Thank you for what you’ve meant to Black women everywhere,” Williams wrote. “You will forever be the first Black president of Harvard University.”
In an interview with The Daily Free Press on Wednesday, Williams called the movement to oust Gay a “witch hunt,” with conservative politicians and activists using criticism of the president “to fuel their own personal agendas.”
“I think that all of this is happening as a consistent, assertive effort to dismantle higher education and dismantle the backing and the power that they have … also [to] erode the trust within the community and how the public views higher institutions,” Williams said.
Williams added that she hopes the members of the Harvard Corporation stay “true to the values” they had when they chose Gay last summer in electing a new president, and urged the corporation to “maintain efforts to find diverse voices across all spheres of academia.”
In the New York Times guest essay, Gay offered words of warning that echo throughout academia and higher education as it grapples with mounting controversy over free speech, urging weariness of what she called the “loudest and most extreme voices of our culture.”
“The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader,” Gay wrote. “My hope is that by stepping down I will deny demagogues the opportunity to further weaponize my presidency in their campaign to undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding.”
Gay added that she believes she is an “ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and demographic changes unfolding on American campuses,” but wrote that college campuses should remain places where students can learn and grow, “not spaces where proxy battles and political grandstanding take root.”
Gay will return to a faculty position at Harvard while Provost and Chief Academic Officer, Alan M. Garber, will serve as Harvard’s interim president until a new leader is selected and takes office, the University announced on Tuesday.
Gay’s words, opinions, and academic actions were the cause for her problems and eventual “resignation”. Of course, she and Kendi will try to incorporate race into the issue. She states that she doesn’t feel safe but refused to consider the Jewish students at Harvard who she expected to ender the hateful rhetoric from antisemitics on the Hatvard campus. Everytime she makes a statement she attemps to excuse herself from her situation. The Harvard board “supports” her. They should all be questioned about what kind of leadership they are seeking for Harvard.
Pro tip to administrative officers/aspirants of any race and gender in elite academia: Don’t minimize antisemitism, plagiarize papers, threaten the free press and attempt to cover it up. It’s that simple. Chances are you’ll be fine.